SCHOOL TRUSTEE WORKS FOR DISTRICT’S LAW FIRM

Solana Beach board member says it’s not a conflict

Correction

The story has been updated to reflect that there is a contract between the district and the law firm. The original story stated no contract existed.

Solana Beach

Art Palkowitz serves on the Solana Beach school board as a part-time job, but his full-time job is working for one of the district’s outside law firms.

Palkowitz is paid more than $100,000 a year by Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, income that he is required by law to disclose on state forms and didn’t.

The conflict-of-interest disclosures are required so the public can monitor for potential conflicts such as a school board member working for one of the district’s vendors.

In response to The Watchdog’s request for Palkowitz’s forms, he filed an amendment to his 2011 disclosure to report the income. Palkowitz and district officials say they carefully manage any potential conflict with his work for the firm, which has been paid $210,966 since 2006.

The Stutz firm says it works with no district contract. The firm has so far declined to release information requested about the terms or details of its services. Each billing is approved publicly by the board in an unitemized purchase order, and Palkowitz recuses himself.

“Because Art does not do any work for our district, he has no financial gain for any work in our district,” said Superintendent Nancy Lynch. “He really focuses on his role representing our students and our community and there is no financial benefit of him serving in that role.”

Palkowitz said he has been forthcoming about his employment with his four peers on the board and district leadership. He said he exerts no spoken or unspoken pressure to his colleagues to award work to his firm.

“I don’t think the community should be concerned because there is no conflict,” Palkowitz said. “There is no financial interest to me.”

The state’s conflict-of-interest law, Government Code 1090, says school board members “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity” — or any contract made by the board itself, even if they sit out the decision.

The district says Palkowitz has no conflict because he has no financial gain from payments to the firm.

Palkowitz was elected to the school board in November 2004. From 2006 to 2010, Palkowitz voted to award somewhere between $74,000 and $136,979 in district work to the Stutz firm.

When Palkowitz took a job as an attorney with the law firm in March 2010, he began recusing himself from school board votes to pay the legal bills for his new employer.

He does attend closed-door meetings in which school board members give direction to their attorneys, including Palkowitz’s boss, Dan Shinoff.

Robert Fellmeth, founder and director of the University of San Diego’s Center for Public Interest Law, said the state’s law is not limited to specific financial benefit from a school board’s decision or, as he put it, the law “goes beyond getting a percentage or piece of the action.”

School board decisions on whether to pursue or settle a case handled by the firm are contaminated because of Palkowitz’ employment, Fellmeth said.

“He is a legitimate client of the firm as a school board member. He very interestingly has the attorney-client privilege operating in both directions,” Fellmeth said. “If I were in this person’s shoes, I would probably not be working for someone that is a direct beneficiary of the decisions of the public body for which I am a part.”

The Watchdog asked late last month how much money the firm has been paid to date in comparison to other firms. District staff asked Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz to handle The Watchdog’s request.

The district’s legal agreements for the 2012-2013 school year with five other law firms range from $5,000 to $35,000 a year, according to district documents. The 2,800-student elementary district has no general counsel and hires attorneys as needed on a project basis, district officials said.

“We have actually used them less than probably we would have because they are a good firm, but we wanted to make sure we only used them in the tough cases given this tight situation,” Lynch said.

On July 24, The Watchdog started requesting more detail about Stutz’s work for the district.

Firm attorney Michelle Meek wrote in a letter Aug. 8, “The district objects to requests for the billing documents which contain descriptions for work performed as invasive of the attorney work product doctrine and the attorney client privilege.”

No other information about the firm’s work has been provided.

Leib, Palkowitz’ colleague on the school board, said he has felt no pressure to select his colleague’s employer over other legal firms for district work.

“Art has always disclosed and we all knew that there was a potential conflict of interest and we very carefully made sure that he never voted or discussed anything that had anything to do with the law firm handling any cases,” said Leib, an attorney at a local liquid waste recycling company. “As you know the law firm that works for us is probably the best in this county that does stuff and Art has got a lot of integrity and I have valued his counsel, because as an attorney he helps quite a bit in terms of giving some legal advice on board matters which we often get,” Leib said.

Palkowitz worked as an in-house legal counsel for San Diego Unified from July 2000 to March 2010.

Friday was the deadline for school board candidates to return paperwork for the November ballot.

As of a week ago, Palkowitz had told The Watchdog he was undecided about running for re-election. Friday, he did not return calls. The Registrar of Voters said he did not return paperwork in time for the candidate deadline. When an incumbent doesn’t file, the deadline for others to file is extended. Candidates have until Wednesday.